AGE AND COHORT TRENDS OF RACIAL/ETHNIC DIFFERENCE IN RELIGIOUS PARTICIPATION AMONG MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER AMERICANS

Abstract Religious involvement is an important way of maintaining social connectedness for older Americans. While large quantities of studies have explored age and cohort effects of religious participation separately, less is known about racial/ethnic disparities. Applying growth curve modeling to the 2004-2020 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N=134,734 person-years), the current study examines how religious attendance changes across the life course and among recent birth cohorts, as well as how exposure to immigration policy regimes (IPR) shapes Hispanic immigrants’ religious participation behaviors. Results suggest an overall reversed U-shape age trajectory with lower average levels and faster declines among more recent cohorts. Compared to White older adults, Black and Hispanic populations attend religious activities more frequently, but their attendance declines at faster rates in later life, leading to minimal White-Nonwhite differences in the oldest ages. However, Hispanic immigrants display significantly less decline in religious participation among more recent cohorts relative to Whites, although no similar trend is found between White and Black/native Hispanic older adults. Further analyses of Mexican Hispanic immigrants suggest that longer exposure to restricted IPR (since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, IRCA) is associated with increased religious attendance, but less restricted IPR (between 1964 and 1985) is associated with decreased religious participation net of age and cohort effects. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding the civic engagement experiences of Hispanic immigrants against the context of immigration policy regimes.

of processing) on mortality risk.Mortality was ascertained through linkage to the National Death Index database.To model time to death as a function of cognitive change and training effect, we used shared growth-survival models with simultaneously estimated latent intercepts and slopes as predictors.Among the 2802 participants, 2021 died on or before the year 2019 (72.1%).Both higher baseline level and slower decline in global cognition were associated with lower hazards of all-cause mortality after adjusting for covariates (HR = 0.68, 95% CI 0.58, 0.79; HR = 0.42, 95% CI 0.40, 0.44, respectively).We did not observe any significant effects of ACTIVE cognitive training in memory, reasoning, or speed of processing on all-cause mortality.Our findings demonstrated the association between the trajectory of cognitive change and mortality among older adults, independent of cognitive training interventions.More work is needed to identify relevant timing as well as modalities of non-pharmaceutical interventions that can promote healthy longevity.

SOCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL SUPPORTS FOR AGING
Abstract citation ID: igad104.1298

AGE AND COHORT TRENDS OF RACIAL/ETHNIC DIFFERENCE IN RELIGIOUS PARTICIPATION AMONG MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER AMERICANS Jingwen Liu, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland, United States
Religious involvement is an important way of maintaining social connectedness for older Americans.While large quantities of studies have explored age and cohort effects of religious participation separately, less is known about racial/ethnic disparities.Applying growth curve modeling to the 2004-2020 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N=134,734 person-years), the current study examines how religious attendance changes across the life course and among recent birth cohorts, as well as how exposure to immigration policy regimes (IPR) shapes Hispanic immigrants' religious participation behaviors.Results suggest an overall reversed U-shape age trajectory with lower average levels and faster declines among more recent cohorts.Compared to White older adults, Black and Hispanic populations attend religious activities more frequently, but their attendance declines at faster rates in later life, leading to minimal White-Nonwhite differences in the oldest ages.However, Hispanic immigrants display significantly less decline in religious participation among more recent cohorts relative to Whites, although no similar trend is found between White and Black/native Hispanic older adults.Further analyses of Mexican Hispanic immigrants suggest that longer exposure to restricted IPR (since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, IRCA) is associated with increased religious attendance, but less restricted IPR (between 1964 and 1985) is associated with decreased religious participation net of age and cohort effects.These findings emphasize the importance of understanding the civic engagement experiences of Hispanic immigrants against the context of immigration policy regimes.
including age, gender, and sarcopenia potential were not significantly associated with intention to use.Horizontal individualism is significantly associated with intention to use (p=.011).Also, horizontal collectivism is significantly associated with intention to use (p=.018).Vertical collectivism interacts with persuasive health communication to predict intention to use among older adults (p=.041).The final model (F(12,141) = 3.699, p<.001, R2=.24) which included cultural value orientations showed significant improvement from the first model which only included age and gender.Overall, the final model accounted for 23.9% of the variance.This study is the first to predict the intention to use wearable robots among older adults and provide valuable insights on future policy development to promote aging-inplace, with the aid of wearable robots.

USING TIMEBANK TO IMPROVE VOLUNTEERING AMONG OLDER PEOPLE: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
Shiyu Lu 1 , Cheryl Chui 2 , and Terry Lum 2 , 1. City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 2. The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Timebanking, a system in which people earn time credits through volunteering and exchange earned credits for goods and services, can potentially promote late-life volunteering.However, evidence to support this innovation remains limited.This paper reports the findings of a quasi-experimental study on a timebanking program implemented in six districts in Hong Kong between January 2021 and August 2022.Three districts were assigned as the experimental districts, while others were assigned as the control districts.We recruited 116 older people in the three experimental districts to join the timebank group and 114 older people in three control districts to join the comparison group.Both groups were offered opportunities to volunteer in community elderly centres within their districts (e.g., home visits or phone calls to older people with disabilities).The timebank group could exchange their earned time credit for rewards (e.g., dining coupons and cookies offered by social enterprises), while no reward was offered for the comparison group.Their volunteering hours were recorded using a tailored mobile phone application, and their volunteering intentions were assessed at baseline, during the timebank intervention (7th month), and post-timebank intervention (13th month).After controlling for covariates (e.g., age, years of volunteering experience) using linear mixed models, the timebank group had significantly more volunteering hours (adjusted mean difference [AMD]=1.37,95% CI: 0.20-2.54,p=0.021) and higher volunteering intention (AMD=0.51,95% CI 0.29-0.82,p=0.001) than the comparison group.This is the first quasi-experimental study to provide evidence that timebank is a promising and effective approach to promoting late-life volunteering.